by Sally Quinn
Now it seemed suddenly as if marriage, a commitment, was what she wanted and needed. She felt a physical emptiness in her belly every time she thought of holding a baby in her arms. Now she was filled with a constant sense of panic. She didn’t know who she was anymore. She felt helpless and impotent. She knew she had called Rachel not a moment too soon.
* * *
Rachel’s office was a small room filled with books and sunlight. There was a pretty blue-and-white tiled fireplace, and pastel water-colors on the walls. The pale rugs were soft and deep, and the chair almost swallowed her up. It was a cozy womb. Rachel was Mother. She too was soft-looking and warm—a bright sunny smile, a soft pastel cashmere sweater, long pale hair, a sweet voice. Whatever reservations Allison had had dissipated when she entered the room and Rachel closed the double doors. She sat opposite Rachel. There was a clock, a box of Kleenex and a pot of tea with two cups on the little corner table. Rachel poured Allison a cup.
“I brought a letter,” Allison ventured, after she had had several sips of tea. “I thought it might save a little time.”
“Why don’t you leave it with me? I’d rather you just told me what’s going on for now.” Rachel had settled back in her chair, one foot tucked underneath her. She smiled an encouraging smile.
Allison was rattled. Already it wasn’t going as she had planned. “Okay,” she said, trying to sound in command. “I’ll try. I didn’t do so well on the phone.” She gave Rachel a nervous smile.
“You did just fine.”
“Well. The headline is that I’ve broken up with the man I love. The lead of the story is that I forced the breakup. Let me just give you a few details about how it happened.”
Allison got so caught up in the story that she managed to keep her emotions at bay, giving a rather bloodless account. It took nearly an hour. “I’m trying not to leave anything out. I just don’t know what you will find significant. This isn’t really my field, you understand.”
When she had finished, she smiled. “Well, that about wraps it up. Pretty boffo ending, huh? So, Coach, what do you think?”
“What do you think?” asked Rachel.
“I think women get fucked is what I think. I think if the situation had been the other way around the same thing would not have happened. I think women and men are totally different. I think women care more. I think I am dying inside and Des doesn’t give a shit. I think I still have my career and that’s important to me. I think I’ve lost the person I love. I think if my father were here he’d give me a lecture about how a woman should never humiliate a man under any circumstances.
“I think if my mother had been here she would have told me… what? God. I just don’t know what she would have said. And would she have been right, anyway? She didn’t fare so well, did she? She tried to be independent, she tried to have her career and her marriage and her husband and her child, and look where it got her. Dead, that’s where. She was punished for wanting to and almost having it all. You know what I think? I’ll tell you what I think. Bad girls get punished. They do in the movies, they do in real life. They die, they lose everything.”
Her voice was building to a pitch. Even Allison could hear the rage in her own words. “I think, I think…” She had tried so hard to control her emotion, but now she felt only relief when the tears came. It seemed like forever that she cried while Rachel sat silent, speaking finally when Allison’s sobs had diminished.
“Tell me, Allison, what do you think?”
“I… oh, God, I can’t….”
“It sounds as though it’s hard for you to feel dependent,” said Rachel.
Allison nodded.
“I’m so lonely. I’m so alone. I have nobody. I have nobody who loves me in my life. I’ve lost everybody.”
“Who have you lost?”
“My mother. She died when I was two. My grandmother, Nana. My nurse, Chisuko; Nick; Sam. And now Des.”
“Who’s Sam?”
“Sam was my father.”
“When did you start calling him Sam?”
“I don’t know. I don’t remember.”
“How did your mother die?”
“She was a journalist. She had covered the war, before I was born. She was covering a story in France a couple of years after the war and she was killed on a French road in an automobile accident. Sam had encouraged her, but Nana had asked her not to go, not to leave me at such a young age. I never really knew her.”
“How did Sam die?”
“He was killed one night, coming home from a party, when he surprised a burglar. I was in New York.”
“Were you close?”
“We were pals. He wanted me to take her place. He loved my mother so much, and he missed her. He wanted me to be just like her. We did the things together that they had done. I was a good friend to him. A good companion.”
“I’m sure you were. Was Sam always there?”
“No, he traveled a lot. He was in the CIA, a spook. He was away on assignment a lot, and then we moved a lot. I was left with Nana a lot of the time.”
“It sounds lonely.”
“It was; oh, it was so lonely! I missed him. When he came home I tried hard to be gay and witty and charming, just like my mother must have been. I thought if I could charm him he wouldn’t go away so much.”
“It sounds like you didn’t get much chance to be a little girl, to be dependent.”
“Sam would have been bored. He wouldn’t have come home ever. He liked to have fun, have a good time. I wanted to please him.”
“So you had to be grown up?”
“I had to be strong, to be independent. After Nana died, I felt I couldn’t count on anybody. I still can’t. They all die or leave and then I’m alone. I’m so alone. I have nobody to love. I have nobody who loves me. I’m afraid I’m being sucked into a black hole. I’m scared.”
“Are you having a hard time looking at me?”
“I’m embarrassed, so ashamed.…” Allison reached into her bag for a piece of notepaper.
“Here,” she said. “I’ve written down a list of questions to ask you. I thought it might help. Number one. If I’m doing what is best for me, why hasn’t it worked out? If I’m getting rid of these people for my own reasons, why aren’t I happy? Number two. Why is it that women have to give up more? Why do women care more?
“Number three. What makes me any different from some housewife? Number four. Where is my pride? I thought I saved it, so why don’t I have it anymore? Number five. Why do I feel ashamed that I long for marriage and children? Number six. Why do I feel so panicked all of a sudden? Number seven. Why do I want to hang on to my old tough-career-girl image? Number eight. Why did I let Nick, then Des go? Number nine. Why do I hurt so? Number ten. Why do I hate myself?”
She paused and looked at Rachel for the first time. “Well,” she said with a laugh, “if we can get those questions answered I guess that would about wrap it up, huh? I’m really not interested in any long-term analysis. In fact, I sort of hoped we might get things sorted out today.”
She was brisk Sterling again. She pulled herself up straighter. She brushed back a strand of hair, then rubbed her hands over her eyes and tossed a Kleenex into the wastepaper basket. “God, I look a mess. I’ve really let myself go lately. I want you to know I’m usually a fashion plate.” There was a silence, and Allison began to fidget.
“So, I guess I asked you before, what do you think?”
“I think we’ve got some work to do. I’d like to explore with you a little more about your father and try to see why there is such a split in your mind between the roles of men and women.
“I’d also like to take a look at the idea of dependence versus independence. Why is it so stark? How did it get that way? I’d like to know why your solutions are so absolute. You have to do this, you have to do that. There are no grays. This has to happen, that has to happen. I’d like to explore with you your fear of abandonment, the fact that you don’t like to get attached, why yo
u become angry at people when you learn they are someone you can count on. I’d like to see you learn to maintain yourself and still be able to count on others. Now, with your father and mother gone there is a pull to fuse with someone. Without that there is the fear, as you said, of going into a black hole. As a little girl you heard only that you had to be strong and independent, that you could never count on anybody. The idea of therapy is to work through those feelings so that the same things don’t happen again. People who have to be adult too early become rigid, absolute. Though they understand intellectually that there is no such thing as perfection, they move toward it anyway. I noticed just as you became really open, just when we were starting to get to the idea of loneliness, you brought out a page of questions in order to control the situation, to take charge. One of the struggles you will have is whether you will be able to be spontaneous or will try to keep the therapy on your terms. You see dependency as something to fear, and independence as the great virtue.
“You’ve only let me in so far today, Allison, but I feel that you tried, and you’ve done just fine. I think I’m going to experience being with you as being lonely at first. Our relationship may end as a strong one if we are able to accomplish anything. And from what we’ve done today, I have no doubts at all that we will.” Rachel smiled.
Allison had stopped shaking and her hands had stopped twitching, even though the tears still threatened. Once again she looked Rachel directly in the eye.
“I’m glad Jenny made me call you.”
CHAPTER 11
“You’ve got to be kidding,” Sadie said into the telephone. She had been sitting in bed sipping her morning tea and reading The Daily. It hadn’t taken her very long to get through the Feature section. February in Washington was always the deadest month except for August. Congress usually took off for George Washington’s Birthday and everybody else who could afford to went south. “I’m not as stupid as I look, Randy. There is no way I’m going to get up in front of a thousand of the most powerful people in the country and sing. Forget it.”
She took a bite of her lasagne and listened to her husband’s aide. “I don’t really care what Rosey thinks, and I certainly don’t give a damn what Everett Dubois thinks. In fact, if Everett thinks I should do it, then I definitely won’t.”
She listened again and nodded. “Look, Randy, I’m a good political wife, and I’ll do most anything to help my husband, but what I will not do is stand up at the Gridiron dinner and sing a song. For one thing, I don’t have a great voice, and for another, I’m not particularly crazy about making a fool of myself. But when I do, I like it to be my idea. You can tell my husband and the entire staff that it is out of the question. I will not do it. And that’s final.”
She put the phone down, smiled, took a sip of tea. “Jesus Christ,” she said. “What will they ask me to do next?”
* * *
“Rosey, I told Randy I wasn’t going to do it. I’m not going to get up at that dinner in front of all those people and sing a song making fun of myself. It’s just too big a risk.”
“You’ll be fabulous, darlin’,” Rosey said. “As long as you don’t adlib. I’m just teasing. They’ll fall in love with you, if they haven’t already.”
It was evening, and Rosey had come home intent on persuading her. They were upstairs in the sitting room off the master bedroom. A fire was lit. Rosey was fixing drinks. A small table had been set up for dinner for two. This was their time to hash over the day, a time Sadie usually enjoyed. It was now less than two years away from the campaign, and Sadie was wondering whether Rosey was running not for the Vice Presidency but for the Presidency. That thought had been creeping up on her. Suddenly she was being judged as a potential First Lady.
“Don’t flatter me. It won’t work. Besides, I haven’t had a decent reason why I should do it. Rosey, I want you to tell me just exactly why you want me to do this.”
He stopped his pacing and looked at her. He could see she was serious and that a casual answer would be the wrong one.
“Because,” he said finally, “I need you. It would help me if you would do this.”
“Forgive me, but just how could my singing at the Gridiron Club help you?”
He sighed with exasperation. “Because the Gridiron Club is one of the oldest institutions in Washington and the journalists who belong will invite other journalists and their publishers to this dinner, not to mention the heavy-hitting politicians, administration types, and ambassadors. And the Supreme Court. If a person does well, appears to have a sense of humor, the word gets out that you’re somebody they can deal with, a good guy, somebody they would hesitate to go after unless they had to. Not only that: by accepting we’re lending clout, just by being there, and in a way they have to be obligated. We could show we’re good sports.”
“What do you mean we, paleface?” screeched Sadie as she sat up and placed her feet on the floor. “I didn’t hear anything about you being in the show.”
“Well, it’s the same thing. You’re my wife.”
“It’s not the same thing. I may be your wife, but I am not the same person. If it’s so important to you, why don’t you sing?”
“Because I’m not the problem.”
“Excuse me?”
“I’m not the problem.”
“And I am?”
“Well, yes….”
“Just what are you referring to?” She had gotten to her feet and had moved over to the fireplace where Rosey was standing, leaning on the mantel, his back to her. They were speaking in polite, brittle voices.
“You know perfectly well. You talk too much. It could hurt us.”
“Wait, let me get this straight. I talk too much and it hurts you so you want me to sing in front of the entire Washington Establishment to help you. Maybe I’m a little slow tonight, but I don’t get it.”
“I’ll go through it with you again.” His voice was icy.
“Don’t patronize me. Randy did not go through it, because I told him not to.”
He ignored that.
“The song they want you to do is in response to a song that the Vice President, or rather the actor who plays the Vice President, sings. He will sing a takeoff on ‘Why Can’t You Behave?’ about how his wife shoots off her mouth and is constantly getting her husband in trouble. Then you will come out on stage as a surprise and sing a funny retort, something to the effect that it’s not your fault and you’re always getting misquoted by the press.”
“I see. And how does that solve the problem of my being such a liability to you?”
“It shows that we know you’re outspoken and that we think it’s funny and that we have a sense of humor about it. A lot of candidates have made a lot of good points at the Gridiron.”
“And a lot of them have hurt themselves.”
“You won’t.”
“I’m that much of a liability to you, huh?” She was hurt. She went back to the sofa and sat down.
“Sadie, come on. You’re very bright. You know your candor, if you will, has become a problem to me. You read the papers. It will be more of a problem as Kimball’s campaign heats up. I can ask you to try and curb it, but I can’t ask you to be another person. And I wouldn’t want to. At least this way, if you do continue to speak your mind, the mood will be set for it to be received good-naturedly rather than hostilely.”
“You poor man. You really are in a bind, aren’t you? Here you are stuck with a wife who can’t control herself and gets in deeper every time she opens her mouth, and yet politically it would be just as bad or worse if you dumped her. What a dilemma.”
“For God’s sake, you’re my wife, I love you. Can I help it if I wish that you were a little more cautious?”
“You know, Rosey, I am no different now than I was six years ago as the Governor’s wife, or for that matter as the Vice President’s wife for the last two years. Why, all of a sudden, is this issue so pressing? Nothing has changed.”
“Because the First Lady of the Unit
ed States cannot say anything she wants to say anytime she wants. She has an obligation to control herself, not just for her husband but for her country.”
“The First Lady?”
Rosey bit his lip, then turned and walked over to the bar so he wouldn’t have to look at her.
“The First Lady?” she repeated.
She could hear the ice cubes tinkle against his glass and the sound of Scotch pouring.
“Now I see,” said Sadie finally, almost to herself. “Well, then, Rosey, if you want me to sing at the Gridiron dinner next month, then I shall be happy to sing at the Gridiron dinner, not just for you but for my country.”
* * *
“I’m sure you’ve probably heard, Mr. Rauch, of my reluctance in this matter?”
Though there was a serious tone to her voice, Sadie was smiling. For one thing, she had not expected anyone as attractive as Jed Rauch on her doorstep.
He was six feet tall with reddish-brown hair and blue eyes, a rather ruddy complexion, and a nice grin. He was stocky, strong-looking, just the opposite to Rosey’s tall, slim, elegant frame. He carried himself like an athlete. He reminded her of her father. He was direct and cheerful as he came into the small drawing room off the main living room. It was lunchtime, and she had decided to make it as social as possible—anything to keep her mind off the main event.
“Reluctant, hmm?” he said with a smile. “That’s what they all say.”
She was a little taken aback. It was not exactly the first thing one might say to the wife of the Vice President. On the other hand, it amused her that he was so undeferential. But then, these journalists were. The good ones. They didn’t seem to give a hoot about people in power. Half the time they seemed contemptuous of anyone who held public office. It was so different from the deference of the general public and the out-of-town press that it made her feel schizophrenic. Being adored on one front and despised on the other for doing exactly the same thing was confusing. Yet she found herself drawn to the journalists like a stuntman to dangerous scripts. She was surprised to notice that she felt the barest stirrings of attraction to Jed Rauch, AP Bureau Chief. It surprised but amused her.